If you are one of the many people who cannot work due to a disability or a blindness, you may qualify to receive financial benefits from Social Security. It may seem logical to you that your condition qualifies you for these benefits, but the process to apply for and be approved for these benefits may not always feel so logical to you. Your claim may even be denied at first.
Before you assume your initial denial means you cannot receive Social Security Disability Insurance benefits, you should know that the SSA does have a multi-step appeal process available to people in these situations.
Medical and non-medical denial appeals
A claim for SSDI benefits may be denied for medical or non-medical reasons. In either case, you may request to have your case reconsidered by a person who was not involved in your case’s initial review. You may provide new evidence to be included in your reconsideration as well.
Options beyond reconsideration
If your reconsideration results in yet another denial of your claim, you may ask to have an administrative law judge review your case in a hearing. The third option available to you if the administrative law judge denies your claim is a review by an appeals council. The final level of appeal that you may pursue in the SSDI system involves a federal court review.
This information is not intended to provide legal advice but is instead meant to give people an understanding of their options to pursue assistance if their initial claim for disability benefits was denied by the Social Security Administration.
